Resumen de Saponin profile of wild asparagus species
Sara Jaramillo‐Carmona, Rocío Rodríguez Arcos, Ana Jiménez Araujo, Sergio López, Juan Gil, Roberto Moreno, Rafael Guillén Bejarano
The aim of this work was to study the saponin profiles from spears of different wild asparagus species in the context of its genetic diversity aside from geographical seed origin. They included Asparagus pseudoscaberGrecescu, Asparagus maritimus(L.) Mill., Asparagus brachiphyllusTurcz., Asparagus prostratesDumort., and Asparagus officinalisL. The saponin analysis by LC‐MS has shown that saponin profile from wild asparagus is similar to that previously described for trigueroasparagus from Huétor‐Tájar landrace (trigueroHT), which had not ever been reported in the edible part of asparagus. All the samples, except A. officinalis, were characterized for having saponins distinct to protodioscin and the total saponin contents were 10‐fold higher than those described for commercial hybrids of green asparagus. In particular, A. maritimusfrom different origins were rich in saponins previously found in trigueroHT. These findings supported previous suggestion, based on genetic analysis, about A. maritimusbeing the origin of trigueroHT. Multivariate statistics including principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis were used to define both similarities and differences among samples. The results showed that the greatest variance of the tested wild asparagus could be attributed to differences in the concentration of particular saponins and this knowledge could be a tool for identifying similar species.
